Emerging Business Strategy & Industry Analysis

Eric Thompson has a system. Every Monday morning, he opens his spreadsheet. Three columns: Company, Position, Date Applied. By Friday, he has added another 40 rows. He is 53, a cybersecurity professional with two decades of experience. Nine months ago, his startup laid him off. Since then, he has submitted 3,047 applications. Five led to interviews. A hundred and sixty-seven generated any response at all. That is a 5.5% response rate. For someone who spent twenty years keepin